Venus shines brightly in this view from the International Space Station, taken by JAXA astronaut Kimiya Yui. (Source)

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The Deke Slayton II Arrives

One year after a fault engine exploded its ISS resupply vehicle on the pad at Wallops Island, Orbital-ATK made an ambitious return to flight with an upgraded Cygnus vehicle named the Deke Slayton II. The launch, using a ULA Atlas V rocket, was a success. (Source)

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Scott Kelly Looks Home From His Year In Space

Scott Kelly, the astronaut spending just under a year in space, took this photo on October 16, his 383rd total day off of Earth, beating a previous record by astronaut Mike Fincke. (Source)

The progression of the moon on the night of the Super Blood Moon, a night where the moon underwent an eclipse at the same time as it was at its closest point to Earth. (Source)

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Earthrise

The view of Earth from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, an update of the Apollo 8's classic "Earthrise" photo. (Source)

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Earth and the Moon

The Moon passes in front of the Earth in this photo from NASA's DSCOVR craft from a perch one million miles from Earth. (Source)

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Mars

Mount Sharp, overlooking the Gale Crater, where the Curiosity Rover roams. The area is likely an ancient lake bed. (Source)

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The Dunes of Mars

Frank Herbert didn't need to invent a desert planet for Dune. He could've just looked at Mars. The Curiosity Rover is currently exploring these dunes on the alien world that seems eerily familiar at times. (Source)

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Sunset on Mars

The Curiosity Rover captured this sundown image on Mars in May. (Source)

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Meteors on Mars

The Curiosity rover spotted this metal meteorite named Lebanon on its journey through Gale Crater. The meteorite is predominately made of iron. (Source)

The view from the South Pole of Ceres, with the Dawn craft approximately 230 miles above the surface. A series of craters are shrouded on the dark pole. This was the first time a probe has ever visited Ceres. (Source)

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Occator Crater

Perhaps no single object in the solar system has captivated people as much as the Occator Crater at Ceres, aka the "What are those bright lights?" region of the dwarf planet. The bright lights are likely salts, which hint at an ocean below. (Source)

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Jupiter and Its Moons

Hubble capture the transit of three of Jupiter's four largest moons passing across the surface of the largest planet in our solar system. (Source)

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Saturn

An amazing view of Saturn from the Cassini probe, which has explored the system for the past 11 years. (Source)

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Enceladus and Tethys

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Cassini happened to catch Enceladus moving in front of Tethys. At about 37,000 miles apart, NASA says this image gives a good approximation of the size comparison between the moons. (Source)

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Enceladus

NASA JPL

Enceladus overlooking the atmosphere of Saturn, right as the Cassini probe prepared for its last pass. (Source)

This is the slushy terrain at the south pole of Enceladus, a tiny moon of Saturn's. Jets of Enceladus' ocean are geysered into space by some unknown process, likely from the gravitational tug of Saturn. (Source)

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Enceladus' Geyser

The wispy material coming from the bottom of the moon Enceladus is a plume of water ice, some of which can reach heights of 100 miles. (Source)

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Hyperion

The last view Cassini will ever have of Hyperion, a large, oddly-shaped moon of Jupiter with a sponge-like appearance. (Source)

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Tethys

Tethys seems like a quiet little ice moon, but some weird things are going on. Take, for instance, these red streaks on the small moon of Saturn. One possibility is chemically impure ice interacting with cosmic radiation. (Source)

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Pluto

The first revealed view of the dwarf planet Pluto just before the New Horizons flyby, displaying a strange world varied terrain and strange geologic processes the New Horizons team is only just beginning to understand. This was the last photo taken before New Horizons began its flyby. (Source)

The left "ventricle" in the "heart" of Pluto is some of the youngest terrain on the planet. Here we can see the surface of the Sputnik Planum on Tombaugh Regio, with ice mountains in the midst of the otherwise smooth terrain. (Source)

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Old Meets New

Some of the oldest terrain on Pluto meets some of the youngest in this picture on the "shorelines" of Sputnik Planum. (Source)

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Rough Skin

The "snake skin" on the surface of Pluto, a series of mountains that give the terrain a rough "texture." (Source)

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Ice Volcanoes?

No one is ready to call these features on Pluto ice volcanoes, but they sure look a whole lot like them. If that conjecture turns out to be correct, it likely adds to the evidence of a geologically active world. (Source)

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Charon

First discovered in 1978, astronomers and planetary scientists had never seen any features of Pluto or its largest moon Charon.. Thanks to the New Horizons flyby, we now have a few answers and a whole lot more questions. This enhanced color view shows a residue at the North Pole that may have come from Pluto's atmosphere. (Source)

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51 Pegasi

ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2

In 1995, the first planet around a sun-like star was found. Now, 20 years later, astronomers at the European Southern Observatory snapped this photo of 51 Pegasi, released to coincide with the first detection of an atmosphere around its planet. (Source)

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ESO 378-1

ESO

A planetary nebula as seen by the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory. The cloud is a supernova remnant. (Source)

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God's Hand

ESO

The CG4 nebula, sometimes called God's Hand, the dim structure is located about 1,300 light years away. (Source)

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Star Wars

NASA and ESA dubbed this jet from a newborn star a sort of "celestial lightsaber," and it's easy to see why in this Hubble photo. The star is about 1,350 light years away and still enshrouded in dust.

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Two (or Hour) Stars Are Better Than One

The DI Cha system involves two sets of binary stars in orbit around each other for a total of four stars in the system. In this image, two of them are visible, as well as a ring of dust around the stars. This image was captured by Hubble. (Source)

Taken at Kitt Peak National Observatory, this image shows LBN 777, a portion of the larger Taurus Molecular Cloud cluster. It's been called the "Baby Eagle Nebula" or "Vulture Head Nebula" due to its distinctive shape. (Source)

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Mergers and Acquisitions

Hubble caught this image of a galactic merger in action between galaxies NGC 7714 and 7715, with the galaxies slowly pulling each other apart and rearranging materials as they become one galaxy. (Source)

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NGC 6503

NGC 6503 isn't just a beautiful galaxy. It's possibly the loneliest we know of in an expanse called the "local void." It's about 17-18 million light years from Earth, but is the only galaxy in the 150 million light year expanse of the void. (Source)

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